Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods for automatically producing embossed card packages composed of embossed cards mounted to matching carrier mailing forms which, in turn, are stuffed into window envelopes for mailing.
Description of the related art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.197-1.99
Credit card embossers of the type which create embossed, or raised, characters on plastic or metal cards, such as credit cards, debit cards, charge cards, library cards, identification cards, access cards, and the like are well known. Examples of such apparatus are show in U.S. Pat. No. 3,861,299 of Drillick entitled "High Speed Automatic Card Embosser" issued Jan. 21, 1975; U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,216 of LaManna et al. entitled "Automatic Embossing System" issued May 9, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 4,180,338 of LaManna et al. entitled "Automatic Embossing System With Document Transfer" issued Dec. 25, 1979; U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,012 of LaManna et al. entitled "Automatic Embossing System" issued Jun. 2, 1981; U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,711 of Gabel et al. entitled "Card Feeding Apparatus For an Automatic Embossing System" issued May 24, 1983; U.S. Pat. No. 4,420,819 of Price et al. entitled "System For Processing and Storing Transaction Data and For Transmitting the Transaction Data to a Remote Host Computer" issued Dec. 13, 1983; U.S. Pat. No. 4,686,898 of LaManna et al. entitled "Credit Card Embossing System" issued Aug. 18, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,785 of Nubson et al. entitled "Embossing Assembly For Automatic Embossing System" issued Aug. 25, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,069 of LaManna et al. entitled "Credit Card Embossing and Recording System" issued Jul. 5, 1988; U.S. Pat. No. 4,784,059 of LaManna et al. entitled "Credit Card Embossing System" issued Nov. 15, 1988; U.S. Pat. No. 4,789,420 of LaManna et al. entitled "Credit Card Embossing System" issued Dec. 6, 1988; U.S. Pat. No. 4,866,545 of LaManna et al. entitled "Credit Card Embossing and Recording System" issued Sep. 12, 1989 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,168 of LaManna et al. entitled "Credit Card Transporting Embossing and Recording System" issued Feb. 13, 1990.
Likewise, it is known to automatically mount preembossed cards to carrier mailing forms, or carriers, by the inserters shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,034,210 of Hill et al. entitled "Credit Card Carriers and Methods of Manufacture" issued Jul. 5, 1977; U.S. Pat. No. B1 4,194,685 of Hill et al. entitled "Verifying Insertion System Apparatus and Method of Operation" issued Feb. 19, 1985 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,429,217 entitled "Verifying Insertion System and Apparatus" issued Jan. 31, 1984.
Apparatus for automatically "stuffing" such carrier mailing forms into window envelopes and automatically applying postage are also known.
An attempt has been made to combine the functions of embossing and inserting cards into a single card package production apparatus which is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,196 issued May 17, 1983 to McCumber et al. While this combination embosser/inserter unit has been used successfully, it is known to suffer from certain disadvantages. Most importantly, it lacks full verification to make sure the card has been correctly embossed and that the carrier into which it is inserted is the mailing form with the correct name and address of the party to whom the inserted cards are issued. Instead, the McCumber et al. unit relies upon rigid synchronization in the production of embossed cards and matching carriers to achieve their coming together in matching relationship. Consequently, even when an erroneous card is known to have been produced, it must still be inserted into a carrier so as not to disrupt the rigid synchronization upon which successful operation of the McCumber et al unit depends. Otherwise, it is presumed that the carrier has been correctly printed; it is assumed that if the card has been embossed, it has been embossed correctly. It is assumed that the cards and carriers have been correctly prepared and at the right time so that only correctly prepared cards are mounted to corresponding prepared carriers. Neither the carriers nor the embossments on the cards are checked for accuracy. Because the rejected cards are allowed to be inserted into carriers before rejection, incorrect, rejected card packages that confusingly look like correct ones are disadvantageously produced.
In order to reduce fraudulent use of cards by unauthorized persons who intercept a card package or steal or otherwise obtain a new card, it has recently been a practice in the card issuing industry to not "activate" a card, i.e. not place it on a list of cards approved for use, until receipt by the proper party is confirmed. Notification of this fact, as well as procedures to activate the card have been printed on stick-on activation labels which are adhered to the cards. The known systems have no provision for producing card packages with such activation labels, and it is only known to apply activation labels manually. Such manual application of activation labels is disadvantageously slow, labor intensive and is prone to human error as well as difficulties in maintaining control. While equipment for automatically labeling envelopes are commercially available but they are not adapted for applying labels to embossed cards.
Since carriers in the known McCumber et al. system were mounted to carriers even if it was known that the cards had been incorrectly prepared, there was no means for keeping separate track of the number of carriers and the number of cards rejected and produced.